Before most of us travel somewhere beyond the stars in No Man's Sky, some of us might appreciate a trip underwater, which will be possible in just a few days when Abzû gets released on both PS4 and PC. It's being developed by Giant Squid, a studio founded by the art director of Journey, Matt Nava.

Not-too-surprisingly, this is giving me very underwater Journey like vibes. Not a bad thing at all in my books.

Forgot all about this game. And judging by the activity in the game's pages on Giantbomb, so did everyone else.

I can't wait! I'm looking forward to some cool chill out under the sea time.

Wow, that looks good. I'm not sure how much "game" is there, but it might be really fun nonetheless.

I like the look of the game, but as with a lot of exploration games it doesn't seem to be clear what you actually...do. It doesn't seem to be open world though it is exploration focused. It doesn't seem to have combat. There could be puzzles or at least traversal challenges but all I've really seen is a bunch of swimming, like a modern Aquanaut's Holiday. I guess that could be cool, if it's well done, but I hope some reviews drop tomorrow to give an idea of what the experience of playing this is like. I don't need spoilers or even a lot of detail but just some basic outline of what you do (like "it's about meditative exploration" or "it's about gathering resources to be able to traverse deeper")

Umm... where are all of the reviews on the interwebs?

You guys know if Bound will be any good ?

I adore water and anything related to it, so this peaks my interest hard.

OMG I'm so excited and I can't pre-order it on PC and grumble grumble

I want Austin Wintory's soundtrack too!!!

I picked up this and Bound in the Play sale on PSN, hopefully I placed the right bets. Looks really cool so far and I'm down to chill underwater for a bit.

And... yep, there's my trigger to play Critical Depth again.

The reviews are out sounds like its a chill ambient dive round a relaxing world and its not trying to be anthing more (it doesn't play and hit like Journey which fans might be disappointed in). Sounds like what I need right now.

For the price I decided to wait. A few too many 3-4hr $20 indie experiences lately. I really wanted to try it but it really does seem like one of those games where I'll be holding up for a few hours and thats it. The way it looks is pretty amazing but I already pre-ordered Grow Up which will probably be more of a game-game.

It's finally purchasable on Steam (I've been waiting all day). Also, 20% off until August 9th is a nice gesture. It has a starting price of £14.99 (about $20) with special price of £11.99 (about $16) until August 9th.

@humanity: Yeah, I think I'll be grabbing Grow UP and No Man's Sky (haven't pre-order cos' waiting on reviews (PC)) and I'll save the super-calming-concetrated-shot experience of Abzu for when I'm stressed out at some point at Uni. Looks like Abzu is selling alright so that's nice :)

@cirdain: Grow Up and Mankind Divided for me.

This game was fantastic. In fact, it was much better than I expected it to be. There's clear nods to the hero's journey just like Journey does. It feels like an orchestral film. Incredible. There are moments where low poly-count is jarring, but other than that, the art design in this game as mesmerising at times. Strangely, the game I came away most reminded of was Enslaved: Odyssey to the West.

I beat the game in 3 hours with 7/12 achievments (and about half of the "Meditation" statue things, I think).

So the PC version works just fine? I was thinking about buying this on PS4 at first, but I think I'll use my spare twenty on something else instead, since this is discounted on Steam.

I'm not paying more than a minimum without a demo. Journey looked nice too, but the demo was pretty dull.

@grulet: Yeah the game plays great. I had to fiddle with what camera/movement I preferred to be normal and inverted (I usually go normal on everything, but for some reason it only made sense if the character was inverted but camera wasn't) - anyhow, just press start at any time to quick select those options which is probably how it works on PS4 anyway. I played it the whole way through with no issues. I have a 970 and set all the (notably slim-mind-you) settings to Ultra and played it on my TV. I saw no issues.

I was hesitant about buying it at first because I knew it would be short, but I figured I might as well take advantage of that discount while it was still live and goddamit, I'm so happy I pulled the trigger on this game. I don't even know where to begin, it was just a nice, pleasant experience from beginning to end. It has easily one of my favorite moments this year:

Ended up buying the pc-version and I loved it. The whole experience didn't grab me as tightly as Journey did, but it got close. Just really mesmerizing all-around and so, so pretty...and that soundtrack, holy crap! Just like with Journey, that was at least 50% part of the whole experience for me.

Nope, it's not just you - I loved that moment too.

I really enjoyed Abzu but, like some people are saying, found that it didn't quite hit the highs Journey (or even Flower, if I'm honest) managed. As a spectacle there's little to match it and it's a great calling card for Matt Nava's new studio.

I'm intrigued to see what kind of game Giant Squid come up with next - Will they return to the well one more time or will they take a different direction?

I enjoyed my time with it, but the story leaned a little to heavily on abstraction to carry the same emotional heft as Journey. It had better signature moments, probably, but it didn't add up to anything which dulled the impact of those moments as the credits rolled. Normally I wouldn't be comfortable making such a direct comparison but the game appeared so adamant the player do so; the art style, general story beats, gameplay mechanics, everything! was so Journey-like it was pretty distracting as well. Hard to get absorbed in this experience when every activity you're doing takes you back to a similar activity in Journey. I mean... raising the water levels reminded me of flying higher and higher in that section of Journey. The slipstreams were obviously an homage to the sand tunnels in Journey. All that Egyptian-like art. The themes of life and death. Releasing creatures from traps on the ground. Pressing square to communicate (except you're not communicating with anything). And so on.

I think it would've been really cool if they'd have just gone ahead and done the whole "randomly you'll come across another (diver)" thing as well. I understand the theme of being alone in a strange place, but Journey had that too, which gave the strangers aspect power, especially when your games remained synced for several minutes as you completed tasks together and helped each other find things.

Abzû was a very pretty experience but it lacked the meat and originality Journey brought to the table. It felt like both a refinement of those ideas and a regression of those mechanics.